Encyclopedia of Russian History

(1189-1238), grand prince of Vladimir on the Klyazma, in northeast Russia, when it was attacked by the Tatars.

In 1211 Yuri’s father Vsevolod Yurevich “Big Nest” had him marry Agafia, daughter of Vsevolod

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

YURI VSEVOLODOVICH

Svyatoslavich “the Red,” grand prince of Kiev and member of the Olgovich dynasty. The alliance would serve both dynasties well. Before his death in 1212, Vsevolod designated Yuri, the second son in seniority, as his successor to Vladimir. Yuri’s elder brother Konstantin challenged his succession and defeated Yuri and his brother Yaroslav at the river Lipitsa in 1216. Konstantin ruled as grand prince until his death in 1218, at which time Yuri reclaimed Vladimir. After 1221 he sent his lieutenants to Novgorod, but the townspeople rejected them. Three years later he attempted to appease the Novgorodians by inviting his brother-in-law Mikhail Vsevolodovich, senior prince of the Olgovich dynasty in Chernigov, to act as his mediator with them. They accepted his offer but his brother Yaroslav objected. Yuri therefore washed his hands of Novgorod affairs in 1226 and turned them over to Yaroslav. Although Yuri was less powerful than his father had been, he took effective military action to stop the Volga Bulgars from attacking Suz-dalia. In 1221 he concluded peace with them. After that, he organized campaigns against the Mordva tribes and, in 1232, subdued them. Moreover, to secure his eastern frontier he built the outpost of Nizhny Novgorod. In February 1238, when the Tatars devastated Vladimir, his wife and sons perished. Later the invaders confronted Yuri and his troops at the river Sit, where he was waiting in vain for Yaroslav to bring reinforcements. On March 4 of that year he fell in battle. See also: GOLDEN HORDE; GRAND PRINCE; NOVGOROD THE GREAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dimnik, Martin. (1987). “Yurii (Georgii) Vsevolodovich.” The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, ed. Joseph L. Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press. Fennell, John. (1983). The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200-1304. London: Longman.

MARTIN DIMNIK

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

1717

ZADONSHCHINA

Zadonshchina (roughly, The Battle Beyond the Don) is the conventional title for a medieval literary work about the historically important Battle of Kulikovo Field (1380). Written some years after the historical event, in the late fourteenth or possibly the beginning of the fifteenth century, it is attributed in one of the surviving copies to a Sofonia of Ryazan about whom nothing is known. The text is preserved in a longer and a shorter redaction, giving rise to the usual arguments in these cases over which was the “original.” Primacy is important to the crucial question of Zadonshchina’s relationship to the Lay of Igor’s Campaign. The short redaction appears to be an incomplete extract and not the author’s text.

There can be no doubt of a close association with the Lay in view of extensive similarities that go beyond any mutual dependence on some third source or tradition. Zadonshchina was almost certainly written as an imitation of the Lay and a response to it, treating the victory at Kulikovo as revenge for the defeat of Igor at the hands of a different steppe enemy. The writer sought to reverse circumstances of 1185 as described in the Lay, turning Igor’s unsuccessful campaign upside down, so to speak. In the process he distorted history: For example, by exaggerating the unity of the princes in 1380 in order to counterbalance the disunity of 1185. Most of his figures of speech are borrowed from the Lay and often ineptly combined and overused. For these reasons, Zadonshchina is considered derivative and inferior. See also: FOLKLORE; LAY OF IGOR’S CAMPAIGN

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jakobson, Roman, and Worth, Dean S., eds. (1963). Sofonija’s Tale of the Russian-Tatar Battle on the Kulikovo Field. The Hague: Mouton. Zenkovsky, Serge A., tr. and ed. (1974). Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, 2d ed. rev. New York: Dutton.

NORMAN W. INGHAM

ZAGOTOVKA

State agricultural procurement.

The term zagotovka refers to the process through which agricultural products (e.g., grain) were pro1719

ZASEKA